MATH recap, and a Mid-Game Tournament Poker Question
The BBT3 continued its first-week popularity on Monday night as a record 103 runners came out for Mondays at the Hoy on full tilt, creating a $2472 prize pool and a payout of $747 and change for first place. I knew that 103 runners to play 6-max with double stacks would be a far cry from the tightness seen early in Sunday night's Big Game, although even I was unprepared for the speed of the game and the frequency of the bustouts. We lost our first player -- "AUS-Package" -- on the very first hand, in stark contrast to Sunday night when we did not have a gigli for going on 40 minutes in to the tournament, and the action just picked up from there. This fast and furious action is one of the things I have always liked about the switchover during the second BBT to 6-max nlh format for the MATH, and it remains one of the things that keeps this tournament unique among the other events in the challenge. The downside is that 6-max can make the MATH feel very pressured very quickly, in particular as the fields swell during BBT time, which was my issue this week as I failed to see a good starting hand all night long save for on AK where I got a walk in my big blind.
What I did manage to do was flop a flush with 87s in the first ten minutes or so of play, being involved in an uber set-up when twoblackaces happened to flop broadway on the same hand. Unfortunately that would be the only significant pot I won in 90 minutes of play, as in fact I failed to even flop top pair again despite remaining in the tournament for some time. It was not fun as I had to rely on pure steals and resteals to get whatever few tiny pots I was able to scrounge up, but as I always say here, if you steal hand after hand, eventually you're gonna get burned. Around an hour and a half in, that's exactly what happened for me, as I ran second pair with A7s (best hand I'd seen in an hour) into pocket Aces, and IGH in 62nd place of 103 runners.
The action remained hot n heavy all the way through the final table, with the chip lead swaying back and forth in the early and middle portion of the tournament until last year's MATH moneyboard winner columbo started to assert himself and nabbed the chip lead with around 40 or so players remaining. When the dust finally cleared on the final table at just after 2:10am ET, columbo remained at the top of the mountain, winning his first MATH of the year despite regularly cashing all over the place in this thing, and more importantly he also grabbed the coveted second BBT3 Tournament of Champions seat. Here are all the cashers for this week's Hoy:
12. $49.44 -- kevin_with_AK
11. $49.44 -- twoblackaces
10. $55.62 -- RaisingCayne
9. $55.62 -- DonkeyPuncher74
8. $74.16 -- MiamiDon
7. $74.16 -- HotPants29
6. $117.42 -- ChippyMcStacks
5. $179.22 -- bayne_s
4. $253.38 -- Breeze81
3. $339.90 -- pureprophet
2. $475.86 -- zeroluck001
1. $747.78 -- columbo
And here is the updated 2008 MATH moneyboard, including this week's results:
1. columbo $928
2. astin $664
3. Pirate Wes $581
4. fuel55 $512
5. surflexus $488
6. pureprophet $484
7. zeroluck001 $476
7. Jordan $476
9. twoblackaces $347
10. bayne_s $291
11. Tripjax $288
12. Breeze81 $253
13. Miami Don $224
14. Donkey Shortz $215
15. VinNay $203
16. Byron $202
17. jmathewson_III $171
18. buckhoya $150
18. Mike Maloney $150
20. chitwood $127
21. cubanlinks $120
22. LJ $119
23. ChiipyMcStacks $117
24. thepokergrind $95
25. ANIguy $89
25. bartonf $89
27. HotPants29 $74
28. katiemother $67
28. Hoyazo $67
30. PirateLawyer $60
31. DonkeyPuncher74 $56
31. RaisingCayne $56
33. kevin_with_AK $49
Amazingly, even with the record 103-player field, still 5 of this week's 12 cashers were players that had previously cashed in the first eight MATH tournaments of 2008. No lawyers that I know of made the money on Monday, which is probably a first for all of this year, but I do know that columbo played great poker as usual in this paticular tournament especially. The undisputed King of the MATH for two years running here earned every penny of his win and fully deserves the ToC seat, unlike a certain Big Game winner who basically came out to donk it up like a blogger on Sunday night to kick off the BBT3.
A hand went down in the MATH this week that I wanted to discuss today, and frankly I think both sides of the equation merit some discussion and analysis. There we were, one hour and 43 minutes in to the Hoy, and the player in the cutoff had just taken over the overall chip lead in the tournament with about 35 runners left at just under 19k in chips, while the big blind was in the top 10 in chips as well of the remaining players. Then the following hand occurs between the Cutoff and the Big Blind:
Full Tilt Poker Game #5492581154: Mondays at the Hoy (41405249), Table 16 - 120/240 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:42:56 ET - 2008/03/03
Seat 1: Cutoff (18,995)
Seat 2: Button (6,025)
Seat 3: Small Blind (3,468)
Seat 4: Big Blind (13,188)
Seat 5: UTG (2,470)
Seat 6: Hijack (11,200)
*Players each ante 25
Small Blind posts the small blind of 120
Big Blind posts the big blind of 240
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
UTG folds
Hijack calls 240
Cutoff calls 240
Button calls 240
Small Blind folds
Big Blind checks
*** FLOP *** [3s 4s 6h]
Big Blind has 15 seconds left to act
Big Blind checks
Hijack checks
Cutoff has 15 seconds left to act
Cutoff bets 720
Button has 15 seconds left to act
Button folds
Big Blind raises to 2,000
Hijack folds
Cutoff has 15 seconds left to act
Cutoff raises to 18,730, and is all in
Big Blind calls 10,923, and is all in
Cutoff shows [Ks Qs]
Big Blind shows [8s 5s]
Uncalled bet of 5,807 returned to Cutoff
*** TURN *** [3s 4s 6h] [Tc]
*** RIVER *** [3s 4s 6h Tc] [8d]
Cutoff shows King Queen high
Big Blind shows a pair of Eights
Big Blind wins the pot (27,076) with a pair of Eights
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 27,076 | Rake 0
Board: [3s 4s 6h Tc 8d]
Seat 1: Cutoff showed [Ks Qs] and lost with King Queen high
Seat 2: Button folded on the Flop
Seat 3: Small Blind folded before the Flop
Seat 4: Big Blind showed [8s 5s] and won (27,076) with a pair of Eights
Seat 5: UTG folded before the Flop
Seat 6: Hijack folded on the Flop
What do you think of the way each player played this hand? I will leave my thoughts on the subject for tomorrow, but I am very interested as always in hearing anyone's thought in the comments, because I think there is a good tournament poker concept buried in this hand, at least the way I see the game.
Don't forget, tonight's BBT3 tournament is the Skill Series, hosted by Chad, also known as the King of Donks for his regular habit of puting the nightly 28k guaranteed on full tilt over one knee and spanking it to a bright cherry red. Tuesday's Skill Series rotation lands on Stud hi, and for a mere $12 + $1 you can have your cheapest chance yet at picking up a seat in the BBT-ending Tournament of Champions where among other things four WSOP seats will be awarded, two to the Main Event and two more preliminary event packages. So come and check out the action at 9:30pm ET on full tilt, with a password as always for the Skills events of "skillz". Oh and don't forget the Bodonkey as well if you're into that sort of thing on Bodog. See you there!
Labels: BBT3, Hand Analysis, MATH Recap, Tournament Strategy
posted by Hammer Player a.k.a Hoyazo @ 8:39 AM
21 Comments:
I hate the cut off play worse than the BB play.
BB's expectation is that he has 15 outs twice, getting 13:8 on his money.
CO is raising against an unraised BB. CO hope is that he has 15 outs twice but being up against 57 or 52 from the check raise is not completely out of play. Rudest surprise would be 5s2s
Real question is why are the two biggest stacks at the table getting into a spot to gamble.
There was no reason for the two large stacks to gamble like this. I agree with Bayne that the CO made the more egregious mistake here.
I echo Baynes sentiments about gambling a big pot at this point where there M's were so healthy.
I posted a question on 2+2 a few months ago about a very similar hand. The problem is, neither hand can truely rely on having a solid count of their outs, and you have to create two ranges of outs, a solid range, which is likely the nutz, and a broader range that could be easily dominated.
KQ can assume any suit is goot - 9 outs, and maybe any king or queen, 4 more outs. So the range is 36% to 52%.
button can assume 8 straight outs are solid, and 7 more flushies are possible. don't know if you want to count the other 2 8s as live, so the solid to risk range is 8 to 17 outs, or 32% to 68%.
With those ranges, each is priced in to normal 3 bets, ie are getting right odds to call, but not to the over jam. Anyway, can't blame the cutoff from trying to shut down the hand, although I would not do it there with that stack, but I would call with the straight and potential flushie.
hey hammer, first time i played the hoy since the new format, really liked it, as it moves things along and is east coast friendly.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I am forced to abstain here, as I posted my POV on my blog already. I am curious to see the comments here.
Being the clowny small blind in the hand who was just watching......
I'm sure CO thought BB was overplaying a draw or bluff raising because BB just got hosed in a previous KK v AK hand, all in preflop, the orbit before this. Sometimes table dynamics play a part. That being said...
Don't limp behind KQs in the cutoff, or at least proceed with caution if you do. I like raising here, maybe buying the button and isolating the open limper a lot more than letting the blinds come along for free.
Respect a checkraise from a blind in an unraised pot.
Is there anything wrong with seeing a turn here, as deep as you both are, with position? I think you really need to see one more card here and evaluate the turn, esp. because we're talking about a limped fourway pot. BB should have a big hand here that he wouldn't mind playing for stacks with.
Shoving over 50BB effective in a limped pot on the flop is just asking to only get called by made hands and combo draws you're flipping against, hands you still have to get there against. The fact CO gets called with a hand they're actually in front of is meaningless - 8s5s has got to be the weakest holding they'll ever see there.
CO can't win the tournament in this spot even if you scoop the pot, but you sure can screw yourself pretty bad by spewing off 2/3rd of your stack if you're guessing wrong.
I love aggression, and god knows I can spew over-the-top allins with the best of them (88 into Donkette's QQ in the Big Game, anyone?) - but this seems a little much.
i think co made the egregious mistake limping pre. if the limper repops it's an easy lay down, and it gets the blinds out of the hand (one would think). once the flop comes, i don't see anything wrong with the way it played out, but i could be biased.
bayne asks "why are the two biggest stacks at the table getting into a spot to gamble?" i think columbo winning the tournament says it all. accumulating that many chips at that stage of the tournament puts you in a great position to win it.
Ugh, analysis of this is long and complicated. I've already deleted a post's worth of text.
Why are we protecting the players? One already has the unadulterated hand history in their blog, and the other has a "modified, but the feel is the same" version up. Did everyone take sensitivity training when I wasn't looking?
I was in this hand, as the button who folded on the flop.
I don't mind the play up to the CO's push. Then I'm not sure on either side's move. If you put the BB on a set or straight, then you only have 9 outs twice here and zero fold equity. If you put them on a pair or A-high, then you've got 15 twice.
Then the BB calls. Did he put the CO on a set? Overpair? Air? In any case, 15 outs twice to call has got to be the reasoning, discounting being against a better flush draw.
In either case, I don't like the push, and I don't like the call. Both seem reckless and based on bad reads, both thinking they were behind but had sufficient outs to take a shot. In which case you're betting your tournament life with a decent stack on a draw. This is totally different if either one is up against a smaller stack, or HAS a smaller stack.
I can tell you that sitting there with under 6000 chips that I was glad to see the big stacks at the table get into it though.
I lied. I agree with LJ and Heffmike that the preflop play with KQs was terrible. Especially 6-handed, that's a raising hand from the cutoff, especially with a limper. All you've done is 100% priced-in the rest of the table with that limp. Bet and if anyone repops, especially the limper, you can make a decision. I know I'd have been gone preflop if there was a raise.
Then the ugly flop play never happens.
Gambling to rapidly accumulate chips is what dropped pushmonkey from a chipleader with 2x the 2nd stack to crumbs to 10k to out short of money.
In spite of my awfuckit moment early overplaying AQ belief remains in the math that says you win 3 coinflips in a row 12% of time.
Little late to the party - this hand has been discussed a fair amount in numerous places, be it other blogs, girly chats, emails, etc. My take was that the KQs limp was bad. Even with the UTG limper who could be tricky and doing that with AA, raising preflop would tell you the whole story if UTG limper reraises big. Either way, I hate the limp because there are more players to act behind so at least by raising, you could try to isolate and have position on any players who choose to play their hand. I'm almost shocked that SB didn't complete given the pot odds.
Post flop, to an extent, I think the hand kinda plays itself out. The thing about the jam is that it could be effective against a not so draw heavy hand. So in other words, CO bets out on this fairly coordinated board of 720. There's a checkraise by the BB to 2000. That's such a weak raise. The amount is so little that it could be that they are trying to induce a bluff with a straight but it could also be that they have a hand they think is best but not quite that good. Let's say like 77 or 88. Instead of slowing down and peeling another card the jam would get those hands to fold. There's no better raising amount because any raise after that and you're pot committed. In other words, let's say CO raises to 6000. BB jams. It's only 4000 more so you call. Well, if you're gonna get 10,000 into the pot, it's better to do it with a shove that has a lot more fold equity here against a vulnerable hand.
CO had no way of knowing that the BB is on the same drawing hand so I think at that point, the hands played itself out.
I think calling would be ok here but jamming to try to take the pot away and if you're behind, thinking you have at least 9, potentially 15 outs twice is not that bad, I don't think. And no, I don't say that because of my hand against Fischman which I think is a little different than this one.
Either way, there shoulda been a preflop raise and this discussion wouldn't happen but then again, that's besides the point.
Both players really dropped the ball. The key, to me, is what Bayne said, why are the two biggest stacks going after each other with such weak hands?
Preflop, I would've raised with KQs, but I can accept a call, assuming that, from there on out, you are actually looking to hit your hand before making any huge plays. The BB was an obvious check.
Once the flop comes and it checks to the Button, I don't mind the bet. However, facing a raise, I would slow down considerably. The BB could easily have the straight already, in which case, the BB is drawing to 9 outs. Once again, WHY do this against the only other stack at the table that is a threat. Once the Button re-raises all-in, he is usually only getting called when he is behind. In this case, he was ahead, but not even by much. The call by the BB is just as baffling. I can understand the appeal of an inside straight draw and flush draw, but not for all of those chips.
Just crazy.
Essentially KQ re-raised all in in the hopes of getting lucky or winning 2,000 chips. Really a horrible play even if it was two overcards and a flush draw.
I like BB's play. He's a big stack, he was the aggressor, and there are very, very few hands that he's behind at this point. In fact I think his hand is even ahead of a set, tho I would have to run the numbers to be damn sure. I like the play and would make it myself - it's a chance to win the tournament, and you're favored in that spot.
HOP - a fold by the BB after committing that much is ridiculous. You have an open ended straight draw with the flush draw so the BB thinks he's got 15 clean outs. The pot is laying better than 1.5:1 (10,923 to call with 16,873 in the pot after the shove), it is almost a winner take all format, double up in this spot in a fast paced 6 max tournament would put them in a very good position to bully the table further and take the whole tournament down. If he's figured 15 outs twice, it becomes a must call.
Also, once you checkraise a board like that and then you fold, what does that do to your image? That you checkraise light? In a 6 max format where you might not be getting hit by the deck, I don't think you want to give off the image that you are raising light or checkraising/reraising light. You could be doing that, but you want your image to be fairly solid. I think that also means that showing you are willing to go to the felt when you checkraise is important.
I think the discussion is turning more towards preserving chips vs accumulating chips. It is 6 max, it's a fast structure, there's nothing wrong in accumulating the chips.
Peaker, KQ did that to get 3,950 in chips, not 2,000. I know, not that big a difference, I'm just pointing it out.
Also, stack sizes confused? BB had less than CO. I don't know how a checkraise to 2,000 is such a great play. Sure, at this point, he might be favored against an overpair or a set but you're laying the right price to get a call and you are still DRAWING. It's one thing if the BB is the one shoving, putting CO to the test but that's not the case.
not sure what CO is thinking by limping in that spot. is that some sort of advanced trap play? CO should be raising that every single time.
that's an action flop. even with those huge stacks neither player is going anywhere. there's an opportunity to amass a HUGE stack after this goes down. it's a $26 tourney. i wouldn't fold either hand post flop.
Besides the obvious mistake of not raising preflop, I also don't like the check-raise to 2000, since in my opinion it should have been to 3000. Another way I like to play this hand is by leading out hoping for a raise so I can be the one pushing all my chips in the middle first.
If I'm the BB I would never fold that hand at that spot in the tournament. I actually feel less comfortable in the Cutoff's position with losing the chip lead drawing to 9 outs (usually in that hand the BB has the straight or 2-pair).
Bloggament + draw = all in and call, is this new? Evaluating bloggament poker is just stupid IMO, nobody cares cause the buy ins and field are so small.....
I love Baynes comment though "Real question is why are the two biggest stacks at the table getting into a spot to gamble". Maybe if you took chances like this Bayne you wouldn't be at a final table with 7K and not a chance in hell to win?
ironically, I liked the KQs limp.
what happened to the good old days when bloggers were weak/tight? =)
KQs limp is meh, after that its fairly standard, although if I was the BB i would take a bet/3-bet line here to get max fold equity
poker stove,
Hand 0: 65.606% { KsQs }
Hand 1: 34.394% { 8s5s }
still rather have the 85 based on the range that cutoff could have.
and for peaker, 85s vs. top set
Hand 0: 60.152% { 6c6d }
Hand 1: 39.848% { 8s5s }
you are almost never ahead of a set when drawing
But here is why 85 is better than KQ
Hand 0: 44.192% { AcAd }
Hand 1: 55.808% { 8s5s }
vs.
Hand 0: 62.525% { AcAd }
Hand 1: 37.475% { KsQs }
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